In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born (20 page)

“Why do we not simply fight now, tonight?” One of her lieutenants gestured in the direction of the queen’s pavilion. “The queen will send her army for us in any case.”

“Because that is not what our master commands. And yes, Syr-Nagath will come for us, but they will find us on ground of our master’s choosing. And tonight we cannot fight as a legion. We would simply blunder around in the darkness.” In clear weather, her race had excellent night vision. But in this rain, it was impossible to see anything.

The lieutenant nodded and saluted, offering her respect.

“Let it be done.” Eil’an-Kuhr saluted them all, and they returned it before turning away. They disappeared into the rain to lead their warriors out of what was now enemy territory.

Eil’an-Kuhr paused, turning to a warrior who stood beside her. He was the most senior among the wounded. His leg bore a deep gash, and while he had been treated by the healers, it would be at least another full day before he could walk on it. She handed him Kunan-Lohr’s dagger, which he took with great reverence. “You and those we leave behind shall be remembered with the greatest honor in the Books of Time.” She clasped the other warrior’s forearms, holding tight.
 

“May thy Way be long and glorious, Eil’an-Kuhr.” The warrior, a male who stood half a head taller than did she, was filled with pride at the honor she was bestowing upon him, and sadness that his final hours had come. They had been lovers for a full cycle, and while he would find a glorious death, both their hearts were torn. The dark rain masked the mourning marks that flowed down their cheeks.

Without another word, she let go and turned to walk away, following the shadowy forms of the other warriors who were moving quietly through the rain toward what all of them knew would be a fleeting time of freedom.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“So much has she grown, even in the time I was away.” Ulana-Tath marveled at her daughter, who lay asleep in the crib that held several other infants, all nestled together. She leaned forward and gently ran a hand through the child’s white hair, careful that her talons didn’t harm Keel-Tath’s tender skin. The wound in Ulana-Tath’s side caused her some small discomfort as she bent over the crib, but by morning it would be healed.
 

“She is very beautiful, mistress.” Ria-Ka’luhr stood beside Ulana-Tath, but made no attempt to touch the child. Only the wardresses, and with their permission, the parents, were allowed that honor. “But she must not stay here. Syr-Nagath will know that her first attempt on Keel-Tath’s life has failed. She will send more warriors — legions, if she must — for your child. She will not relent.”

Anin-Khan, who stood on the other side of Ulana-Tath, growled, his gaze flicking to the warriors, the city’s finest, who stood close watch around the creche, with four of them posted, swords drawn, right around Keel-Tath’s crib. “The walls of Keel-A’ar have not been breached in over a thousand cycles. They will not be breached by any army of the Dark Queen.”

“I would not stand in dispute over your words, for they are spoken with great pride and as truth. Yet what you do not realize is that she is building an army the likes of which has not been seen since the last war with the Settlements, perhaps longer. What she has now is nothing, compared to what she will eventually command. T’lar-Gol will soon be hers, and the lands beyond the Eastern Sea will fall not long thereafter.” Ria-Ka’luhr shook his head. “Your warriors here will not face one legion, or ten. You could just as easily face a hundred, backed up by siege engines and weapons of war drawn from the darkest pages of the Books of Time.”

“Impossible!” Anin-Khan threw the young acolyte a disbelieving look. “Even if she could amass an army of builders and concentrate their power, it would take cycles for them all to learn what they needed from the keepers to build such contraptions.” He waved the thought away. “Syr-Nagath will break upon the shore of the Eastern Sea as so many others have before her. Many greater have tried, all but a few have failed. And even the few who breached that watery obstacle, even the handful in the past age who have reached the stars to confront the Settlements, eventually fell to dust.”

Ria-Ka’luhr said nothing more, but bowed his head in respectful acquiescence.
 

“He is right, Anin-Khan.” Ulana-Tath felt a chill run down her spine as she imagined a horde of warriors surrounding the city, and it made her think of Kunan-Lohr. He still lived, she knew, but how could he hope to make it home?
He does not intend to
, an unwelcome voice spoke in her mind. Blinking the thought away, she went on, “You have not seen her, as I have. There is good reason why she is called the Dark Queen. If she wants to kill Keel-Tath, she will if Keel-Tath remains here.” She placed a hand on the elder warriors’s shoulder as she sensed the fire rising in his blood. “This is not a dishonor for you to challenge or to bear. It is a fact. Even if Kunan-Lohr could return with what is left of our army, how long could we hold against tens of legions and unfathomable war machines?”

As Ria-Ka’luhr had done a moment before to him, Anin-Khan bowed his head in submission. “What do you command, mistress?”

“We must take her to the temple of the Desh-Ka. That is as our lord commanded me before we parted.” She turned to Ria-Ka’luhr. “I know the priesthood is obligated to take her in, but…”

He shook his head, knowing what she wanted to ask. “Once she crosses the threshold of the temple, you will not see her again until she either becomes an acolyte or she leaves of her own free will.” He paused. “If she does that, she can never return to the temple.”

Looking at her daughter, Ulana-Tath felt an impending sense of loss. The thought of not seeing her again for many cycles, and perhaps never, drove a knife through Ulana-Tath’s heart.

Yet, in the end, it was the only way her only daughter could survive.

“We will take her to the temple.” The words were as ash upon her tongue. “Only the Desh-Ka have the power to save her.”

“Then we should move her,” Ria-Ka’luhr’s suggested. “I could escort her and a wet nurse to the temple and be there quickly, before any more of the queen’s forces can arrive here, and without diluting Keel-A’ar’s defenses. We could be at the temple in a fortnight.”

Ulana-Tath knew the young acolyte’s words were no mere boast. She was a veteran warrior, but his skills, as she had seen when he had killed the last of the queen’s riders, greatly outstripped her own. Besides, two travelers would draw far less attention than a group of warriors riding for the temple.
 

As for the city’s defenses, Anin-Khan had few enough warriors now, and Ulana-Tath was contemplating stripping the guard to the bone to send reinforcements east to link up with Kunan-Lohr.
 

Before she could open her mouth to reply, Anin-Khan fell to his hands and knees before her.

“Mistress, I beg you, do not do this. I gave my solemn vow to our lord and master that I would defend your child. I would rather you take my head or shave my hair than not permit me to fulfill this duty.” His talons scratched the stone of the floor as his hands clenched. “We both know it was his final command to me, and I would not take another breath knowing I could not honor it.”

Anin-Khan was filled with many levels of misery as he awaited the answer of his mistress. But even in such a state, his senses were acutely aware of his surroundings. He noticed the subtle shift of Ria-Ka’luhr’s weight on his feet, and out of the corner of his eye saw the acolyte’s hand, casually resting on the hilt of his sword, tighten upon the weapon’s handle.
 

More telling by far was the brief but intense flash Anin-Khan felt through the melody of the young warrior’s blood that revealed only an impenetrable frozen darkness. Then it was gone.

His muscles reflexively tensing for battle, Anin-Khan sat back and put his hand on his sword as he looked up, catching the acolyte’s gaze. On the floor, he was at a dreadful disadvantage, but…

Keel-Tath let out a sudden scream that shattered the stillness of the creche. One of the wardresses was instantly there, picking up the child. Ulana-Tath could feel her daughter’s distress, and wanted nothing more than to hold the child in her arms. But that was not the Way.

Ria-Ka’luhr stepped away from the crib as if the scream was a physical blow.
 

Anin-Khan used the distraction to get to his feet, his hand tight on the handle of his sword as he stared at the acolyte, noting the unmistakable, if fleeting, expression of fear that flashed across his face.

Before he could say anything, Ulana-Tath, who appeared to be oblivious to the exchange, announced, “We will leave at once for the temple. Anin-Khan, I ask forgiveness for even considering going against Kunan-Lohr’s command to you.”

“I thank you, my mistress, for your wisdom.” He saluted her, but never took his eyes from Ria-Ka’luhr.
 

“Then let us prepare.”

* * *

“Something is amiss,” Anin-Khan whispered as he watched one of the wet nurses prepare the infant child for travel. The nurse wrapped Keel-Tath in a soft, warm carrier that would hold her snug against the nurse’s chest, even on the back of a galloping
magthep
. “Did you not feel it?”

Ulana-Tath stood close beside him in an alcove of the creche. Anin-Khan had dispatched the Desh-Ka acolyte with a pair of warriors to prepare
magtheps
for the trip. The command, for Anin-Khan did not pretend that it was a request, had clearly come as a surprise to the young warrior. “No, I did not. I sensed nothing unusual with Ria-Ka’luhr.”
 

“I did not imagine it, mistress. He was about to strike.” He looked more intently at the child. “I believe that she sensed it, too. Her scream was no coincidence, and was not the cry of a child in need of milk or in discomfort. She was terrified.”

Ulana-Tath frowned. A fierce and accomplished warrior, Anin-Khan was also the sire of eight children. He had spent far more time in the creche than she. And yet she remained unconvinced. “You know that infants her age can sense almost nothing through their blood. It was coincidence, nothing more.”

Shaking his head, Anin-Khan told her, “I will not argue, mistress, but I hold to my belief that she sensed the darkness in him at the same instant as did I. Ria-Ka’luhr is involved in some unknowable mischief. I do not trust him.”

“Why would an acolyte of the Desh-Ka come to do us harm after one of their high priests vowed they would protect her?” She shook her head in frustration. “Why would Ria-Ka’luhr have bothered to save me? He could have killed me and none would have been the wiser.”

“Had he come upon you earlier, perhaps. But we would have pursued him had he killed you out in the open where we found you. We knew who you were, and we saw his approach. He would not have escaped us had he caused you harm.” He shook his head. “By saving you, he guaranteed his own entry to the city.”

“Then why did he not kill us before Keel-Tath cried out?” Ulana-Tath was doing her best to restrain her anger at Anin-Khan’s insinuations. He was a capable and cunning warrior, but she feared that in the shadow of the peril cast by the Dark Queen he was seeing wraiths among shadows, threats where there were none. “He could have killed us all and made good his escape in the confusion.”

“I do not know, mistress, but I think that he fears her.”

“An infant?” Ulana-Tath’s incredulity was plain in her voice.

Anin-Khan clenched his armored fists. “Do not think me mad, mistress! I know what I felt, and what I saw. On his face in the instant your daughter screamed was an expression of fear, a fear sufficient to break his will.”

“I do not wish to doubt you, but what would you have me do? Kill him? How many warriors would we lose if we tried? And how would we explain that to the Desh-Ka?”

Shaking his head, Anin-Khan said, “Of course not, mistress. We will go according to our plan. All I ask is for us to be vigilant. If we arrive at the temple safely and I am wrong, I will offer him my life to cleanse my honor.” He glanced at Keel-Tath, who now rested comfortably in her cocoon against the nurse’s breast. “It would be a small enough sacrifice to ensure that your daughter reaches safety.”

* * *

Ria-Ka’luhr fought the nausea that swept through him as he helped the two warriors prepare the mounts for their upcoming journey to the Desh-Ka temple. Under any other circumstances, Anin-Khan’s dismissal of him to such a menial task would have been an insult fit to spawn a challenge to ritual combat, but Ria-Ka’luhr was secretly relieved.

He had intended to kill Ulana-Tath and the child there, in the creche, and had been about to draw his sword when Keel-Tath screamed. It was not the sound that stayed his hand, but her spiritual voice in his blood. She had somehow seen into his soul in that brief moment, and he had felt his emotional defenses fall. The voice of her spiritual song had filled him with such mindless fear that his concentration had been completely shattered.

And Anin-Khan had known. Somehow, the savvy old warrior had known Ria-Ka’luhr was going to strike even before the girl-child screamed in terror.
 

By the time the elder warrior gained his feet, Ria-Ka’luhr knew he had lost his advantage. He was certain he could have bested the other warriors and Ulana-Tath, but Anin-Khan gave him pause. Kunan-Lohr would not have entrusted the safety of the city to anyone but the best of his warriors, and Anin-Khan had the trophy scars of many battles.
 

After the moment passed, and after he saw that Ulana-Tath’s attitude toward him had not changed, Ria-Ka’luhr simply pretended as if nothing had happened.
 

Yet,
something
had happened, and Ria-Ka’luhr had to decide upon his next course of action. He could not simply leave and try to kill them again later, perhaps ambushing them along the road to the temple. That would make clear his malignant intent, and they would be prepared.

Or…he could continue to pretend nothing had happened, that he had merely been startled by the child’s sudden cry, and that Anin-Khan had misread his reaction. Ria-Ka’luhr doubted that Ulana-Tath would openly confront him about any suspicions Anin-Khan might voice to her; to do so would be a deep insult to the Desh-Ka, and he would have clear right to challenge her to ritual combat.